Saturday, May 24, 2008

Late Entry, May 22 - Prideaux Haven

22 MAY 08

We're anchored out in Melanie Cove in the Prideaux Haven area of the Desolation Sound Marine Park entirely alone right now. Didn't see a soul on the way up except for a lone crab fisherman out tending his pots in Homfray Channel.

It's another beautiful day up here today, sunny and nearly seventy degrees out. We had a decent sail today—we didn't really have far to come, perhaps eight miles total from Galley Bay, but we started out in a whipping wind and made good time for the first thirty minutes. Then we got into the mouth of Homfray Channel and the winds got confused, and we spent the next three or four hours zinging back and forth between making about a knot of speed and making about 6 knots (that's zipping along pretty briskly, for you non-sailboat folks—our hull speed, or the theoretical maximum speed with which our length and form of hull can pass through water, is only 7 knots).

Toward the end, approaching the entrance to Prideaux Haven, the wind calmed again and wafted us along a just about 1.5 knots right about 30 yards from the shore of a nearby island. It was whisper quiet, and we just drifted along, watching the trees, a brace of seals sunning themselves, and clumps of starfish clinging to the tide line. It was very peaceful and pretty. Then we heard a low, rising roar astern and turned around to see a grey, four-engine plane coming right at us about two hundred feet off the deck. He zoomed right over the top of our mast and then continued up the Channel, making a slow climbing turn up into the clouds and leaving us in peace once again. It must have been a Canadian Navy plane out on some sort of exercise—I didn't recognize the type and it happened so fast we didn't get any pictures. Certainly a reminder that no where in the world is quite so isolated or quiet as it may seem, however.

We took the dinghy ashore right after we dropped anchor here and hiked up the trail at the head of the cove hoping to find the remains of the apple orchard there planted by the logger “Mike” described in “The Curve of Time” by Muriel Blanchet. But all we found was a trail that turned quickly into a streambed (or vice versa) and a massive blow down at the other end. It was a nice hike, anyway.

Not sure what we'll get up to tomorrow—we have another day or so we can spend here in Desolation Sound before we have to head out toward Campbell River for Mandy's flight home. If the weather holds—and I think we're lucky it's been so good so far this time of year—I'm sure we'll enjoy wherever we end up.

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